A high school classmate of mine recently referred to family dinner as a “nightly condom commercial.” That’s pretty grim. My kids are older than his, so my feelings about family dinner may be slightly less bleak. But family dinner is not the most relaxing twenty minutes — because that is how long my kids will sit at the table — of my day. The kids bicker, spill things and complain about the food while my husband and I silently assure ourselves that these delightful moments are why our children will not grow up to be glue-sniffing felons.

Well, nothing seems to diminish the constant sibling bickering, but at least I can try to prevent complaints about the food by coming up with kid-friendly meals that do not put the adult palates to sleep.I have tinkered with this recipe for Turkey Sloppy Joes until I think it is just the right balance of sweetness, brightness and umami.

Sloppy Joes is not something I grew up eating. My dad was a neat freak, so he was against any food that had “sloppy” right in the title. And despite Sloppy Joes reputation as a lunchroom classic, my school lunchroom only served other kinds of mystery meat, including something called “Charlie’s Special.” (What was it? To this day, no one knows.)

But JR, the King of the Picky Eaters, once came home from preschool claiming that he liked the Sloppy Joes served at lunch. So I, eager to add another meal to his repertoire of noodles, macaroni and cheese, and more noodles, quickly started making them. Because I try to not serve beef too often for environmental and health reasons, I use ground dark meat turkey in my Sloppy Joes.

Now, this isn’t exactly gourmet fare, but I promise you that these Turkey Sloppy Joes are a weeknight workhorse. Quick, no fancy ingredients needed, and everyone will eat it without complaining. Make a side dish of whatever vegetable your kids deign to eat: steamed broccoli, roasted cauliflower, sautéed carrots. Declare victory and move on.

I said that that no fancy ingredients were needed but then I call for shallots instead of onion in the recipe. Why? Because shallots will melt into the sauce in a way that onions will not and in my house, visible pieces of onion is grounds for rejecting a meal entirely. If you do not have shallots on hand, and your kids don’t object to onion, feel free to use it.

The ingredients in the sauce are carefully balanced to include umami from the tomato paste and the Worcestershire, sweetness from the brown sugar and acidity from the tomato. The splash of lime juice at the end brightens everything up. I once heard Chef Michael Anthony of the famous Gramercy Tavern in New York talk about how finishing a dish with acid is quintessential American cooking. I agree. Whenever my food feels a little unexciting, my first instinct is to add a squeeze of citrus or a drizzle of vinegar. It usually does the trick.

The only element missing from this sauce, in my view, is spice. And here is where we parents sacrifice our own interests for the sake of our children. If it were up to me, I would add some heat and smokiness to this sauce, maybe from a chipotle pepper. But we know what the kids would say! Feel free to doctor your own sandwich with a dash of something spicy.